Saturday, June 8, 2013

Blog # 302 We are all related

Blog # 302 We are all related

Did you ever consider what the difference would be for you if you believed in more than one God? We sort of take for granted the notion of God as Single, Unique, Creator of all, Ever-Present. All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All-Good, etc. There was a time in human experience, when the notion of a single God would have been like thinking the world was round at the time of Galileo.

One significant insight that comes to me when I consider what might be the difference if there were several gods rather than one is this: with the notion of a single Creator of all that is, everything that exists is connected.

There are no exceptions here. Frost and warmth, light and darkness, youth and old age, flowers and insects, mountains and rivers, life and death, men and women, you and I are all connected if you accept as fact there is but one God, one Creator of all.

Rather than the word 'connected' we could have used the word ' related'. Then the notion I am reflecting upon comes out like this: Everything and everyone that exists is related to everyone else andeverything else that exists in the one Creator of all. In fact, this relationship is so profound and all pervasive that all other relationships are subsequent to it and based upon it. The relationship we have to one another as brothers and sisters in a family is not as deep as the relationship we have to all creation in God our common Creator.
Such a thought might be a shock to some people. Yet when you think it out, our parents give us much of what and who we are. God gives us all that we are. This little consideration gives a bit of insight into the meaning and significance of God's command , given us in the divine Jesus, (Immanuel - God Among Us) "Love one another as I have loved you." To have commanded us to love one another as brothers and sisters would have been less strong.

These thoughts are helpful in discovering and appreciating more perfecctly the meaning and power of our human history and in our study in the field of science as well as our study of the Bible. Days and years are related. Historical epochs are related. Ezra is related to Moses. Moses is related to Abaham. Abraham is related to Adam and Eve. David is related to Luke. All of creation is related to Jesus the Word of God, the Messiah, the Galilean carpenter and rabbi. We discover something of the full identity of Jesus in discovering the identity of Moses, Abraham, of Adam and Eve and of ourselves.
This connectedness in history could very well be recognized even by a person who does not believe in God. But for someone who does believe in God the connections in creation did not merely happen, as it were, by chance, but were built into creation according to a plan we call God's love. The birth of Moses did not surprise God. God loved Moses into being. So for Abraham and Adam and Eve and for you and for me.

In Jesus something altogether special and unique occurs. In Jesus God relates to all creation not from some unimaginable place, with some unimaginable degree of Power Wisdom Goodness and Love, but in Bethleham, at a given moment, in a given year of time, like us in all but sin.

Jesus is related to Moses and to Abaham and to Adam and Eve and to you and me through His birth from Mary. Yet Jesus is also related to the Father and the Holy Spirit in a unique way that could never be ours unless it were through Him. But that we know is God's plan. This is the good news of salvation. We are to be like brancehes on a vine in the image given by Jesus and as members of His Body the Church as given by Sts. Paul and John. "See what love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called children of God. Yet that is what we are!" We are brothers and sisters in Adam. We are children of God in Jesus.

Jesus was sent not merely to teach about God, as others had been sent before Him to prepare the way for Him, but to be God among us, God Incarnate, in human flesh, walking talking sleeping eating, yet divine. He was not merely to be a good example to us,but the power to make us good. At the beginning of His public ministry , in the synagogue of Nazareth Jesus selects a passage from the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

Though sent and anoinetd by the same Spirit to bring the same message of God's wisdom and goodness, there was an essential difference between the prophets who had come and gone before Jesus and Himself. Other prophets had announced and proclaimed the message and promises of God. Jesus claims He IS the message and the fulfillment of the promises. Limited in His humanity but infinite in His love, Jesus is the perfect expression on earth of the Father's will. He was sent by the Father for this.

But it was not for His sake that Jesus was sent. It was for the sake of others. "Come, follow me", Andew Peter James John Frank Mary Tony Annie Mae. Down through the ages until the end of time the invitation continues to be given. "Come, join me in fulfilling God's plan for you, bringing justice,peace, light, freedom, love."

There is but one Creator of all that is. All creation , past, present, and whatever is to come shares in the invitation Jesus was sent to bring. "...a people living in darkness has seen a great light." Look, listen, learn, follow. Thank You, Jesus!